Detective Constable Rubens McCauley is on the out with the powers that be. A former member of the disbanded and discredited drugs squad, McCauley has done things in the past he’s not proud of. Now he’s in the frame for the murder of a gangland figure who murdered a police officer and got away with it. Mcauley had been drinking heavily and telling anyone who would listen how he was going to get even with Louis Varilla. Now Varilla has been found shot dead in St. Kilda. All the evidence seems to point to McCauley. Two prostitutes even noted down a licence place number of a car driven by the killer. It matches his.

McCauley knows he didn’t kill Varilla, but, with Ethical Standards convinced of his guilt and a major taskforce into gangland killings also breathing down his neck, how does he prove it?

The blurb on HEAD SHOT says Jarad Henry has worked in the criminal justice system for the past ten years. It shows. There is a credibility to HEAD SHOT that implies that Henry knows how things work. He has met the people and walked the streets. Anyone who has been following the saga of the Melbourne gangland killings and the success of the Purana taskforce in securing convictions in relation to the killings, will find more than a few parallels in HEAD SHOT. I don’t know exactly what Henry’s job has been the past few years, but I suspect there could be a true crime book there that might prove even more fascinating than HEAD SHOT.

Henry has a second novel BLOOD SUNSET due for publication in May, 2008 and I, for one, can’t wait.

It's a first novel, and it shows a bit - but it's definitely worth a read. Henry's experience in working as an unsworn member of Victoria Police shows through, giving the book a high degree of authenticity; writing skill prevents it from being overwhelming. ( )

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/4039 ( )